An Agility- and Creativity-Fueled TD Strategy

DataArt: 2025 BEST Award Winner, #15

New York, New York

2-Time Winner

Future readiness and agility are essential for companies in the IT industry such as DataArt. Contending with rapid advances in technology, artificial-intelligence-informed shifts, and a competitive talent market, organizations in IT must drive value in multiple ways. At DataArt, that includes upskilling and reskilling the workforce to better serve its global clients.

The company focuses heavily on enhancing technical capabilities, particularly in generative AI, cloud technologies, and information security. The firm also undertook efforts to promote an "opportunity mindset" among employees that encourages proactivity, risk-taking, and self-promotion to capitalize on emerging opportunities.

The L&D department is a standalone function contributing to five areas: attracting and retaining talent, motivating and engaging employees, building the company brand, fostering a values-based culture, and developing capabilities. The broad scope ensures that L&D goals align to business needs. Agility is key.

Nurturing junior talent is a top priority across the business, so the L&D team launched a quality assurance school, where in-house experts trained more than 110 external participants. The team also offered an AI boot camp that attracted more than 500 applicants. The efforts aim to upskill nonemployees to help build the company's brand and create a pool of potential future employees. In addition, the team developed IT and intercultural communication courses and made them publicly available on the learning management system.

Another important initiative is one focused on building international employees' English language skills to help them better communicate with future clients. The company evaluates interested staff on their language skills and the L&D team tailors learning plans to individuals not working on clients' projects. Since the program's launch in 2024, participants have improved their proficiency by one or two levels.

The company also recognized a need to develop its managerial bench strength. The ULead mentoring program targets middle and senior engineers and managers who want to develop their managerial skills. The goal is to foster networking, improve interdepartmental communication, and cross-collaboration. DataArt pairs participants with experienced managerial mentors who meet biweekly for three months on average. Action plans and real-world cases fuel discussions and mentees learn to drive the process proactively. While the emphasis is on emerging managers, mentors note that their own growth in empathy and emotional intelligence has been an unexpected benefit for them.

Because DataArt is an international company, intercultural awareness and communication are also skills that build through the mentoring process. The initiative is popular, with a program rating of 5 out of 5 and a Net Promoter Score of 80 percent. Ninety days after program completion, 100 percent of participants report they are using the knowledge and skills they learned during the ULead experience.

"Our L&D team's efforts have been instrumental in driving our mission to blend engineering excellence with a people-first approach, focusing on upskilling our colleagues, fostering leadership, and promoting cross-cultural collaboration," says CEO Eugene Goland.

View the entire list of 2025 BEST Award winners.